


An Ode to Love and Terror

by krakenmyheart



Category: The Boys (Comics), The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, animal death mention, butcher-typical language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krakenmyheart/pseuds/krakenmyheart
Summary: Butcher doesn't like dogs until he finds one that likes him. Then his life changes forever.





	An Ode to Love and Terror

**Author's Note:**

> I was sad about Terror not being in The Boys and immensely worried that they may have killed him off screen (since he technically appears in a flashback, but not in the present) so I desperately concocted a way in which to include him while also working off the fact that Butcher uses him as a kind of coping mechanism after Becca which I think is an important turning point for the character. 
> 
> Becca and Butcher's meeting in this is an altered version of their meeting in the comics.

Butcher wasn’t ever much of a dog man, and most dogs were glad for it. They got a way of knowing the things you’ve done—the things you might do. Sixth fucking sense, and all that. Sometimes he’d walk down the street and it’s like suddenly they’d all gone feral, every single one with it’s hair raised on its back, tugging on their leashes, having a fit. It’s not like he’d ever hurt one. No, there wasn’t any point in it. He preferred fighting things his own size, but some stains just don’t come out, and as far as souls go—if there’s any such stupid thing—his was as good as rotten. 

Anyone, man or canine, would tell you the same. 

Then he met Becca.

She sat on the subway beside him and the first thing he noticed after the warmth of her smile was the portly, pale bulldog at her feet, a thick column of saliva drooling from its chops while it panted.

The dog didn’t take one bad look at him, didn’t lunge or bark or snarl. In fact, beneath all those wrinkles, its tongue hanging out like it was hardly attached, it almost looked like it was grinning, and Butcher realized that he was too. The bruises on his face flared with a dull pain against the crinkle of his eyes, still fresh and swollen from the fight back at the bar and singing lullabies.

Becca looked over. She didn’t seem to mind the dried blood. 

“He likes you,” she said.

“That’d be a first.”

“He’s usually a good judge of character.”

“Usually,” Butcher repeated. “His radar must be off, you should take him in to be looked at.”

She laughed something small and the whole train quieted and so did the ringing in his ears.

“Tell you the truth, he likes everybody, but people like to hear that sort of thing.”

“You mind?” Butcher asked, lowering his hand toward the dog. Becca shook her head and he went in tentatively, letting the dog press its snout up against his fingers. He expected a bite or a growl at least, but what he got instead was a slimy kiss trailing over the back of his knuckles and in between, with no signs of stopping yet.

“If you’re not careful, he’ll probably lick it right off the bone,” Becca told him.

Butcher didn’t move. The whole thing was downright disgusting, slobber sticking to him, coating his skin like paint, rolling all the way down his hand. But the dog’s tongue was soft over scars and calluses and there was something nice about it too. Gentle.

“He can have the bloody thing,” Butcher decided.

“Trust me.” Becca’s eyes went narrow and deadly serious as they locked onto his. “He’s had his fill of limbs for the week.”

They were both still for a moment. 

Becca laughed first. She always did. The sound was light, and it filled him up until he couldn’t help himself either, and they shared in that moment together with the dog still licking his hand until it felt raw but in a good way—and who knew that was possible? 

It wasn’t until a long time later that she told him she thought he needed a friend on that train, bruised and bleeding the way he was. She was good at that, finding people. Helping them. Most people would look away, they’d walk faster, or turn around, but if there was any good left in you, Becca always saw it, no matter how deep it was buried. Even if you’d forgotten it was there. And that dog of hers, Toby she called him, he’d lick a hole through you until you found it again.

In one night, Butcher went from having nothing to having everything, and he liked the change of pace, so much that he married her. The world was less empty with them around, but he should’ve known better. He never deserved either one of them.

Toby went first. It wasn’t anything bloody. It was quiet, in fact. He laid down one day and never got back up. They had known it was coming, the sheen in his eyes had started to dim with age, like he’d given out all the love he had left. He’d lived his life up, and he’d done it well. Nothing more to see, is all. He greeted the dark the same way he did Butcher—a smile wide over his chops and a pool of slobber at his paw. Not afraid at all. 

Becca didn’t cry but it’s not because she wouldn’t miss him. She sat at his side the whole night, enjoying the last few moments he’d be there, and when it was over she was ready to let him go.

“What else could I ask for?” she had said, with one last stroke atop his head.

More time, Butcher thought. Who would blame you? But he didn’t say it out loud and when he held her afterwards he forced out the tension from his bones and tried to be softer. They buried him at her parents' house and the whole while he was digging that grave, fingers clutched white against the shovel, her words kept after him: what else could I ask for?

A lot fucking more.

But Becca wasn’t like him, and that’s why he loved her, and it’s why he knew she’d hate what he’d become. He asked that very same question when he realized she was gone. The answer came to him easy, and with a list of names that would never end.

He got used to being alone again in the meantime, to the empty apartment and the cobwebs. He welcomed the ache in his knuckles and the taste of copper in his throat like they were the only mates he ever had, but the one thing he couldn’t stomach was the quiet. No ear-splitting pop songs or clattering paws on the hardwood—the life that once surrounded him. All those things he’d taken for granted. He would lay in bed with sunlight pooling through the window and he’d think about Becca’s voice in his ear, the way it used to travel down his spine like a haunting, and now that’s all it was. Static images and ghosts, fleeting memories. Everyday he’d turn on the security footage and watch through a haze, and he always hoped it would end differently. Maybe she’d walk through the door one day and it’d be like they never lost any time at all, or he would see her on the subway again, the only person in a sea of cunts worth knowing. He would find her, the way she had found him, even if just for one more moment to share, but the silence kept on, relentless.

Lightning don’t strike twice.

He still found himself looking, years later when everyone else said she was dead, even when he hardly noticed he was doing it—taking a stroll through the city, riding until the end of the line. By then the stains were so deep in his core there wasn’t any bother trying to rinse them off anymore. Dogs barked and bared their teeth and sometimes he did it back just so they knew who they were really messing with. Stopped ‘em dead, usually. He’d have a laugh over that for a minute but there wasn’t any joy in it, and the smile faded fast. One day he passed by a window that had them all lined up like inmates, clawing at their cages, desperate for something, whether it be love or a lambchop or just somebody to help pass the time. He didn’t know what it was exactly that drew him inside, but every one of them erupted in a frenzy at the sight of him. The place came alive like a warzone.

A nervous looking kid greeted him above the noise and asked him what he was looking for. Butcher didn’t quite know how to answer. 

“I ain’t,” he said after a moment, scanning over the cages. There were even more of them inside. All rescues, the kid told him. He followed Butcher around the shop, listing facts about each dog like a sale’s pitch. Spot’s favorite game was fetch, Grover’s favorite food was salmon. Boots only liked blue blankets.

“You asked ‘em, then?” Butcher said. “They told you so?”

The kid blinked, dumbfounded.

“How do you know a dog’s favorite fucking color?”

He didn’t get an answer. The kid slinked off and let him be, watching from a distance. Truth be told, it didn’t matter what Spot liked best or what food Grover wanted or anything else because whenever they got a whiff of Butcher their happy wag turned into a cautious crouch and that was the end of it. Or it was, until he found the bulldog tucked away in the back.

A fat, white little thing chewing on a stuffed rabbit’s head. The body had already been decimated in the corner, and its fluffy insides were strewn across the cage like a bloody crime scene. The dog was so enthralled, he hadn’t noticed Butcher watching him, and when his eyes finally did come up they regarded him with a wide smile that could’ve toppled him right there. It was like looking back in time, really. He was on the subway again and a kind stranger let him pet her dog and the dog had let him too, and the world turned in ways he never knew it could.

A shadow fell across him and Butcher half expected Becca to lay her hand on his shoulder. Something sharp and bittersweet cut through his chest, followed by a wash of cold.

It was only the kid at his side again.

“He’s been here a while,” he said. “Most people go for the puppies, or at least the nicer looking ones.”

Butcher ignored him as he rambled off some more bullshit. Slowly, he stuck a finger through the wire cage and let the dog come closer for a sniff. There was old blood dried beneath his fingernail and he stopped there to examine it. Neither of them moved. Suddenly the rabbit’s head rolled from the dog’s mouth and he bit down against Butcher’s skin. There was no pain. His teeth were gentle. He continued to nibble, looking for a snack, and Butcher kept still to let him. Soon his whole hand was covered in slobber and the dog kept licking and biting like he was onto something big. 

He kneeled down close to look him in the eye and what he saw staring back was something he thought he’d never have again. The dog watched him, big hungry grin and all, and it looked like maybe he thought the same. With one last friendly lick of approval, he moved back to the rabbit’s head and ripped it’s button nose clean off. 

“Right bit of a terror, ain’t ya?” Butcher said beneath his breath. The nametag on the cage read Rodney. He looked at the kid beside him as he peeled it off and let it fall to the floor. “Maybe he would’ve had better luck if you didn’t give him a fucking twat’s name.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nevermind. I’ll take him.”

The kid didn’t question it. 

Butcher left with Terror by his side and by his side, Terror never left. Finally, he had something again. Somebody to pass the empty time with. Somebody even to love. What else could he ask for?

At least for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Good news is that I think Terror IS alive in the show, he's just off chilling someplace else because we're getting a confirmed episode centered around him in season 2 and the way it was framed by the showrunner didn't sound like it would be a flashback. So yay!


End file.
